X-Press Publishing

Project Overview

This capstone project implements all routing and database logic for an internal tool for the comic book publishing company, X-Press Publishing. This project is part of Codecademy's "Create a Back-End App with JavaScript Skill Path."

The X-Press Publishing internal tool allows users to:

• Create, view, and update artists
• Create, view, update, and delete comic book series
• Create, view, update, and delete issues of a specific comic book series

All of this functionality can be seen in the video below:

Project Setup

To get the X-Press Publishing up and running on your local machine, follow these steps:

1. Clone the Repository:

   • Open your terminal.
   • Clone the project from GitHub: git clone https://github.com/Robson16/x-press-publishing.git
   • Navigate into the project directory: cd x-press-publishing

2. Install Dependencies:

   • In the project's root directory, run npm install to install all necessary project dependencies (including testing libraries and front-end build tools).

3. Start the Server:

   • After installation, you can start the server in two ways:
     • For development with hot-reloading, run npm run dev. This will automatically restart the server when you make changes to server.js or files in the api/ folder.
     • For production or a standard start, run npm run start.
     • You'll see Server listening on port 4000 in your terminal, indicating the server is active.
     • To stop the server, use Ctrl + C.

4. Access the Application:

   • To view the front-end application (which consumes this API), simply open index.html in your preferred web browser. Google Chrome (v60+) or Firefox (v55+) are recommended.

Implementation Details

The database tables and API routes were created according to the specifications below. The project uses npm to manage dependencies such as express. The testing suite and provided front-end were used to verify functionality. The seed.js file can be run to populate the database with sample data, and table creation logic was implemented in migration.js.

To ensure compatibility with the tests and front-end:

• The Express app is created and exported from a root-level file called server.js
• The server listens on a port specified by process.env.PORT, defaulting to 4000 if not set
• All Express route files use the database file specified by process.env.TEST_DATABASE, or default to the root-level database.sqlite
• The database is always loaded with new sqlite3.Database(process.env.TEST_DATABASE || './database.sqlite')

Database Table Properties

• Artist

  • id - Integer, primary key, required
  • name - Text, required
  • date_of_birth - Text, required
  • biography - Text, required
  • is_currently_employed - Integer, defaults to 1

• Series

  • id - Integer, primary key, required
  • name - Text, required
  • description - Text, required

• Issue

  • id - Integer, primary key, required
  • name - Text, required
  • issue_number - Text, required
  • publication_date - Text, required
  • artist_id - Integer, foreign key, required
  • series_id - Integer, foreign key, required

Route Paths and Functionality

/api/artists

• GET: Returns all currently-employed artists (is_currently_employed is 1) on the artists property of the response body (200)
• POST: Creates a new artist from the artist property of the request body and returns it on the artist property of the response body (201). Returns 400 if required fields are missing.

/api/artists/:artistId

• GET: Returns the artist with the supplied artist ID on the artist property of the response body (200). Returns 404 if not found.
• PUT: Updates the artist with the specified ID using the artist property of the request body and returns the updated artist (200). Returns 400 if required fields are missing, 404 if not found.
• DELETE: Updates the artist to be unemployed (is_currently_employed set to 0) and returns 200. Returns 404 if not found.

/api/series

• GET: Returns all series on the series property of the response body (200)
• POST: Creates a new series from the series property of the request body and returns it (201). Returns 400 if required fields are missing.

/api/series/:seriesId

• GET: Returns the series with the supplied ID on the series property of the response body (200). Returns 404 if not found.
• PUT: Updates the series with the specified ID using the series property of the request body and returns the updated series (200). Returns 400 if required fields are missing, 404 if not found.
• DELETE: Deletes the series if it has no related issues (204). Returns 400 if related issues exist, 404 if not found.

/api/series/:seriesId/issues

• GET: Returns all issues related to the series with the supplied ID on the issues property of the response body (200). Returns 404 if the series does not exist.
• POST: Creates a new issue related to the series with the supplied ID using the issue property of the request body and returns it (201). Returns 400 if required fields are missing or the artist does not exist, 404 if the series does not exist.

/api/series/:seriesId/issues/:issueId

• PUT: Updates the issue with the specified ID using the issue property of the request body and returns the updated issue (200). Returns 400 if required fields are missing, 404 if the series or issue does not exist.
• DELETE: Deletes the issue with the supplied ID (204). Returns 404 if the series or issue does not exist.

Testing

A comprehensive testing suite was used to verify all essential functionality and edge cases.

To run the tests, npm install was used to install dependencies, followed by npm test to execute the tests. The output provided information about passing and failing tests, helping to ensure correct implementation and to identify edge cases.

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. Developed by Robson16.